Parashat Balak: The Moment of Judgment

We have parashat that is full full of full of insights full of mus full of lessons that we could all apply to our lives. And uh the truth is is that when you look at this para uh you're seeing a few things. You're seeing a few things. Of course, the para starts where the uh Hashem's promise to Isel uh when they are righteous is actually shown. You know, many times we see, you know, our version of things. We see how, you know, the enemy is, you know, scaring us, causing us problems. Uh but, uh we're not necessarily always seeing the protection until after the fact. But one of the blessings that promises to is that when we are righteous, when we are following the Torah, it's not only that it'll protect us from enemies, but the enemies will be scared of us. The enemies will be scared of us. Regardless of which enemy, whether it's Iran or it's your next door neighbor, whether it's your competitor or it's your ex-wife, whatever it is, the uh the enemy will be scared of you. Uh now of course this is one of the things we see at the beginning of the parasa. Unfortunately it doesn't last till the end of the parasa but nonetheless in the beginning of the parasa we see that balak uh is petrified because he sees that am is just destroyed and og. Uh and one of the reasons why this scares him is because he actually took over a big part of the land that belonged to Balak. At some point he lost a war to Sikhon and uh this scares him. This uh uhh puts him in a situation where he uh he's starting to look into the abyss and see how uh his end is near. Uh and uh he simply cannot tolerate just sitting there and he wants to attack. Now what weapon does he want to use? He wants to use the same weapon that worked on him. How did Sikhon beat him? Because the first time Sikhon tried to attack him, didn't uh uh didn't win, but the second time they came, they actually won. And that's because they got the help of Bilam. Bilam, who was a uh prophet and also uh someone that dealt with witchcraft. Uh some say only witchcraft. Needless to say, this person was the uh uh the prophet of the Gentiles. This was actually the says that allowed uh to have a uh specific strength uh or a specific ability I should say that even Moshe Rabenu did not have which is that he knew the the moment that Hashem uh punishes punishes the people in the world each day and if he uh he takes advantage of that moment and he also curses somebody then that person gets uh gets punished as well. This is the way that uh he helped Sikhon defeat uh defeat Balak and his army of Moav. Now the problem here is that uh it's this is not the end of the story. This is just a beginning. So we see that in the beginning we see that uh Balak is actually the beginning of the story starts at the end of last week's para where the uh Balak is part of where he is uh mocked uh by Bam by Bam where uh in the section of the par where it talks about the uh the defeat that uh took place where it says woe to uh woe to Moav. Moav that lost the war that their land was taken over. And uh it says in the uh chapter 21 uh verse number 27 where it uh it says um regarding to uh regarding this the poets would say and the poets the say was really bil and his father come to let it build and establish as the city of. So this is talking about how uh the uh the story starts where Moab led by Balak is at it's you know is not necessarily at a good position. They're in dire straits and now after they've been weakened you know they're trying to keep to themselves until you know in their idolatry until they see that their enemy was defeated and now they realize that they're next. they're next in line, but they but there's no uh there's no uh uh thing that's going to get in the way of uh their desires. So, they're even going to hire their enemy, which was Bam, in order to help them fight the war. But we see that the treatment that Balak has to Bilam is a, you know, is a relationship of contempt. He hates him. Even though Bilam is technically the holy person among the Gentiles, he is the leader. He is the holy one. We see that he actually hates him. He uh insults him of several times. Even the say that even when he finally when Bilam finally arrived uh to uh to Balak, he uh Balak just sends him food and does not even sit with him. You know, the relationship is an odd relationship. But more than this, we have to see that how B himself is really someone that we have a lot to learn from his acts, not obviously his intentions, not uh his uh his his heart, but the words that he says because of course everything that's mentioned in is the words of for us to learn from. And we see that Bil initially he sees a situation where he's indifferent about who wins or lot loses because he just pretty much wants to benefit himself. So he uses his abilities in order to enrich himself in order to feed himself. He cares less about who the winner is, who the loser is, with helping the nations until it comes to the nation of Israel, which he hates with a hatred unlike any other. Meaning that it's not just that he wanted to benefit monetarily by getting paid by by Balak for cursing Israel. He wants to destroy Isel regardless. We are meant to be a light unto the nations, not to follow their misguided practices. Remember, every Jew has to remember that he's a Jew and she's a Jew. We don't celebrate non-Jewish holidays, even if they seem harmless. It's a zil disrespect to the Torah and could lead to chal Hashem, desecration of God's name. Stick to our holy Torah and our own holidays. That's the path of a true Jew.